Hallo!

On Thu, 14 May 2009 16:45:05 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier skrev:
> > Hallo!
> > [...]
> > Yes. A conlang is never really "finished", and
> > be it just because there are sooooo many things
> > to be named in either this world or the
> > fictional world the conlang is spoken. A conlang
> > on which its author no longer works is indeed
> > essentially a dead conlang.
> 
> I forgot to include my own footnote, namely that
> in a way natlangs with only one speaker still
> alive are also in a sense dead before the death of
> their last speaker -- or speakers: I read that
> some Native North American languages are not used
> for communication any more in spite of their last
> few speakers being neighbors, because each of them
> is not aware of their neighbors' competence in the
> language, so they speak English with eachother...

This underlines the importance of creating a "preserved space"
in which an endangered language is cultivated, as in the Welsh
eisteddfod festivals, for the survival of the language.

> [more on language revival]
> 
> Also, how does a conlang transmitted to new
> speakers differ from a natlang so transmitted?
> When, for example, is it OK to coin new morphemes?
> Does it take the original author's express
> permission or authorization, or merely the lack of
> their prohibition?

Ah, that's a thorny issue, and battles of words have been
fought over that!  I know of at least four cases:

1. Volapük, where the author rejected all words coined by
   anyone else, claiming that it was "his" language.  This
   strongly contributed to the demise of the scheme, as a
   language owned by a single individual can hardly be a
   world language.

2. Novial - there have reportedly been flamewars on AUXLANG
   between different Novial revivalist fractions.  (Similar
   to the divisions observable in the Cornish revivalist
   movement.)

3. The "purist" vs. "reconstructionist" battle in Tolkienian
   linguistics, whether vinyacárier (newly created words
   that are not attested in canonical sources, but based on
   attested material in linguistically informed ways) are
   legitimate or not (now provisionally settled by the
   convention of referring the thus-expanded languages
   as "Neo-Quenya" and "Neo-Sindarin").

4. Lojban: the Logical Language Group, rather than just
   modifying the grammar of Loglan, relexed the entire
   language in order to evade J. C. Brown's copyright claims.

>       In practice it may however be
> wise to refrain from it in either case, unless the
> author has expressly laid that authority on some
> person(s) or laid down rules for how it should be
> done by some democratic process, lest the language
> splitls into one incompatible daughter language
> per speaker/user!

Indeed.

>       It seems reasonable to suppose
> that new compounds or derivations using the
> morphemes left by the author are OK if and as long
> the meaning of these coinages are readily
> understood from the meaning of their parts to
> anyone who knows the language as left by the
> author.

This is the position, as far as I understand it, of the
"reconstructionist" Quendianists, but the "purists" insist
on such reconstructions being speculative and to be rejected,
as nobody can know whether Tolkien would have approved of
these reconstructions.  After all, such "reconstructions" are
*not* considered legitimate in the study of extinct ancient
languages such as Hittite or Sumerian.

> [...]
> 
> > Indeed, "the road is the destination". The fun
> > in conlanging lies in *making* it, and as long
> > as you are *using* it, you are still making it,
> > as you will probably run into blank spots in the
> > lexicon or the grammar even if your language is
> > highly developed. Writing down a grammar sketch
> > and a few hundred words can be done in a few
> > days, but that will only be the *foundation* of
> > the conlang: you *will* run into *lots* of blank
> > spots when you start using your conlang.
> 
> True, but are we to create a hierarchy of conlangs
> and conlangers where those who work on one
> language over a long time, and their languages,
> are more worth than those who create many sketches
> and their creation? I think not; anyone who
> creates new linguistic structures is a conlanger,
> and any newly created linguistic structure is a
> conlang.

It was *not at all* my intention to create such a hierarchy;
I apologize for using misunderstandable language.  Of course,
it is perfectly legitimate to write up a grammar sketch and
a list of a few hundred words, and leave it at that; if that
sketch contains interesting ideas, it is better than a humdrum
Euroclone with 5000 words and 100 pages of grammar!

>       Sure there attaches an interest and a
> respect to a mature conlang, but not so that an
> immature conlang lacks interest, respect or value.
> Surely the principle of equal value of all
> conlangs and conlangers, however (un)developed
> the(ir) conlang(s) is fundamental to maintaining
> peaceful relations in our community; there is a
> definite danger in starting to make *value*
> judgments based on volume or persistency of
> eachother's work.

Indeed.  Size doesn't really matter in art: think of masterful
haiku on one hand and the monumental buildings left behind by
the Nazis on the other.  A small piece can be a masterpiece;
a large work can be totally bland.

>       We may have private and
> individual standards of comparison, but we should
> keep them private and personal and not try to
> impose them on the community.

Sure.

> [...]
> > I can only confirm that, looking at the history
> > of my Albic project. It started as Nur-ellen, a
> > descendant of Tolkien's Sindarin; but it soon
> > developed into a completely different direction
> > and is now no longer related to Tolkien's
> > languages (a few ideas, such as the
> > active/stative alignment with degree-of-volition
> > marking, have survived, but it tells a lot that
> > the surviving features were mostly my own
> > invention even in early Nur-ellen).
> 
> Do you have *any* feature left which is a
> characteristic feature of Sindarin, like lenition?

Old Albic does not have phonemic lenition, initial or otherwise,
but allophonic lenition occurs.  Most, if not all consonants have
lenis allophones occuring after vowels, nasals and liquids, even
cutting across word boundaries in some contexts.  These allophonic
lenitions will become phonemic ones, resulting in Celtic-like
initial mutations and all that, in several of the daughter languages.

> As well as there is an ANADEW principle there is
> also a good case to make for an *A Conlang Already
> Dunnit* principle: it would take an agglomeration
> of features already found in any one same language
> (nat- or con-), and an *absence of features not
> found in that same language* to claim plagiarism.
> Clearly there is a level of fair use, however
> difficult it may be to objectively measure (and
> the community will punish any violator with their
> disinterest!)

Yes.  I avoid doing exactly what someone else has already done,
but I think it is fair use to pick up an idea from someone else's
conlang, as long as you don't merely imitate the original but
build something new.  One daughter language of Old Albic will be
quite similar to Sindarin (or Welsh), and one quite similar to
Quenya, but only in their phonology and some general typological
parameters (the "Quenya" will inherit the Old Albic morphology
intact, while the "Sindarin" will lose case endings, etc.)
There will also be an Irish-like language (indeed spoken in
Ireland), and several others without either Celtic or Tolkienian
models.  All of them will, of course, be thoroughly *Albic* in
their grammar and vocabulary, and not draw on the models by which
they are inspired in terms of morphemic material.

> [...]
> > Right. I am aiming at just this kind of maturity
> > with Old Albic; perhaps some of its daughters
> > will also be developed to maturity later, but
> > Old Albic goes first, and I still feel that is
> > has come quite close to maturity but not fully
> > reached it yet.
> 
> To me there is a question both of the maturity of
> single languages as synchronic systems, and the
> maturity of their diachrony and relation to other
> languages -- whether they're part of an apriori
> language family or an aposteriori member of a
> natlang family, like a romlang, or an aposteriori
> relative of someone else's conlang(s) (since I too
> have mucked about in Middle-earth, though I have
> naught I feel worth daring to reveal!)

Indeed.  These are two different facets of maturity.  A conlang
can be synchronically mature without having any diachronic
background.  I know several impressively mature conlangs which
either have no imagined linguistic history attached, or at least
that history has not been disclosed by the author.  One can even
retrofit a conlang with a diachronic development, as Mark
Rosenfelder has done with Verdurian:

http://www.zompist.com/verdurian.htm

It started as an eclectic Euroclone cobbled together for use in
a role-playing game that drew on various European languages,
and now it has a rich diachronic background involving various
sister and cousin languages.

On the other hand, a conlang can be "diachronically mature"
without synchronic maturity.  Consider Geoff Eddy's conlangs:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/lang/index.html

I don't know how much material is in existence about them;
the web site, at any rate, contains only grammar sketches with
little vocabulary.  Yet, if you compare those grammar sketches
with each other, you see how the languages verily resemble
diachronically related languages, and there is surely a set of
sound changes behind them, even if it is not documented on the
author's web site.

>       The goal
> here is clearly the ability to write an historical
> grammar sufficiently similar to an historical
> grammar of a natlang.

Yes.  I definitely want to write a historical grammar of the
Albic languages one day.

> [...]
> > Yet, Germanech lies quite
> > neglected, and I haven't done much work on it or
> > with it for a few years. It is one of those side
> > projects that are waiting indefinitely in my
> > mind to be picked up again.
> 
> But it still has some presence in your mind,
> right?

It does, very much so.  Hence, it is definitely not dead,
only dormant.

> > Yes. Germanech is almost dead because it is
> > essentially *finished*; there is not much left
> > to explore (other than running yet more words
> > through the GMP, but that is more of an
> > automatic procedure rather than a creative act
> > of exploration). What is left to do on it is
> > essentially bookkeeping work.
> 
> That's the trouble with aposteriori histlangs: the
> GMP *is* the work of art, unless you are able to
> also devise interesting and credible (as in "could
> this credibly happen in a natlang in that time and
> place") morphologic, syntactic and above all
> semantic innovations. Some such changes will
> inevitably follow from the GMP; the art lies in
> spotting those, and in devising other new ones.
> Once that is done the attraction of a histlang
> lies in its use in a conculture or alternative
> history setting.

Yes.  That's the matter with Germanech.  At the core lies the
GMP, which in this case is more or less built by graftig sound
changes of German onto Proto-Romance, with some adaptations.
Some of the developments that result from that are interesting:
Western Romance has /E/ > /ie/, German has /ie/ > /i:/, which
resulted in the development /E/ > /ie/ > /i/ in Germanech:
the VL open-mid vowels leap-frog the close-mid vowels and
become high vowels!  Yet there are things the GMP does not
cover, such as the restructuring of the syntax after German
models (Germanech is, for instance, a V2 language with SOV
order in subclauses and inifinite verbs at the end of the
clause).  The conculture is only sketchy, though: the language
is spoken in the LLL framework in a few villages in the vicinity
of Trier, and its speakers are culturally not very different
from their German-speaking neighbours (and are of course also
bilingual in German).

> > The Albic family offers much, much more
> > uncharted territory to explore (and then there
> > is the notion of "Hesperic" languages, a larger
> > family of which Albic is just a branch, and
> > which I am not sure about whether those
> > languages will exist at all - but I already have
> > some ideas about them, and will probably do them
> > later); if I compare Old Albic to Germanech, I
> > must say that Germanech is more *mature*, but
> > Old Albic is definitely more *alive*!
> 
> Exactly. In a sense the aliveness of a conlang is
> a function of how interesting its uncharted
> territories are (or how clever/original/exotic its
> charted territory is.

Indeed.  And in this respect, Albic has much more to offer than
Germanech.

>       Exoticness is a double-edged 
> sword, however, balancing on the point of
> credibility.

Very much so.  Piling up exoticism over exoticism in a single
conlang usually is not a good idea.  Old Albic has a few
"exotic" features - but only a few!

> [defence of CGV]

This is entirely a matter of taste.  My taste says "No"; others
may differ.  It surely depends on the quality of the program
used.

> [...]
> > I feel that a conlang, in order to feel alive
> > and "real", needs an elaborate con-history.
> 
> I'm 100% with you on that. Histlang(er)s are
> definitely an important subgroup of artlang(er)s,
> and we all know who our patron is! :-)

Sure.

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